Space Travel
12, Feb, 2012

Tenth Planet of the Solar System Discovered
Written by spacetravel.org   
Saturday, 30 July 2005 22:14
On July 29, 2005, planetary scientist Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, announced the discovery of a planet, larger than Pluto, in the Kuiper Belt, which extends outward from Neptune’s orbit. The planet is about 97 times further from the Sun than the Earth, about 3 times further from the Sun than Pluto. It is the furthest-known object in the Solar System. The planet, the third brightest of the Kuiper Belt objects, is a typical member of the Kuiper Belt. However, its size in relation to the nine known planets mean that it can only be clasified as a planet.

The size of the planet has been inferred by its brightness. The amount of light the planet reflects, which puts a lower limit on its size, is not yet known. However, Brown says, “Even if it reflected 100 percent of the light reaching it, it would still be as big as Pluto.” Brown estimates that it is about one and a half times Pluto’s size. Because NASA’s Spizer Space Telescope is unable to detect the new planet, the overall diameter must be less than 2,000 miles.

Brown says the planet will be visible with a telescope over the next six months. Currently, it is almost directly overhead in the early-morning eastern sky, in the constellation Cetus.

The discoverers of the new planet have proposed a name to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), but will not announce it until the IAU have made their decision. For now, the object is known as 2003UB313.

Dr. Brown and his colleagues Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii and David Rabinowitz of Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut first photographed the object with the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope on October 31, 2003. However, it was so far away that its motion was not detected until the data were reanalyzed. The researchers did not realize it was a planet until January 8, 2005.

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